Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court has banned the activities of a number of organizations in the country for their involvement in terrorist acts, a source at the Prosecutor-General's.

Office told Itar-Tass today.

The court began considering these organizations' work at the initiative of the Prosecutor-General's Office. According to information from the Prosecutor-General's Office, the religious extremist party Hezb-e Tahrir al-Islami, which has been announced extremist by the court, is illegal from now on in the country.

The Supreme Court declared the [East] Turkestan Liberation Organization (Sharq azat Turkestan), East Turkestan Islamic Party (Sharq Turkestan Islam partiyasy) and the Islamic Party of Turkestan terrorist structures, and their activities are also banned in Kyrgyzstan from now on.

The source said that now the law-enforcement agencies had to search for the property of those organizations and hand it to the state. In addition, prosecutor's agencies of Kyrgyzstan will now have more opportunities to bring to court those who spread out leaflets with calls of overthrowing the existing authorities in the country. Until now such people, according to the Kyrgyz laws, could have been brought mainly to administrative responsibility only.

All the banned parties were linked in one way or another with terrorist acts committed in the country at different times, sources from the Kyrgyz special services told Itar-Tass today. The terrorist acts include the killing of a Chinese diplomat in Bishkek last year, an explosion at the biggest commodity market in the capital in December 2002 and the firing on a Chinese government delegation in 2000.